Galileo System To Include Jamming Capability

CharonX writes "The Galileo project, an european alternative to the US based (and controlled) GPS system, recieved a severe setback today. Under US pressure the EU has agreed to use transmission frequencies that could be easily disturbed or completely jammed by the US military. Since one of Galileo's main advantages had been being independent of goverment or military control, this is a severe setback. Read more here on Heise.de (German - ya might want to use the fish)" Some of the background on this had NATO being unhappy with some of the provisions of it as well - at the least military structure.

Comments

Naivity

[Anonymous Coward]

Let us not be naive; there was no other real reason for Galileo than EU money into EU industry, the massively underestimated budgets (30 billion Euros only) is a big hint on that. Just launching the 24 satellites (and that assumes NO losses) would eat up about that amount of money, and then you have ground stations, staff, development and, best of all, maintenence.

The whole thing has been presentet as being too good to be true, and guess what: it should then not be assumed to be true. The US has developend, evolved and maintained the GPS for about 30 years and it has cost a bit more than what EU has guesstimated.

Secondly it was always rather hazy just who should control Galileo and just what limitations should be in place; it was always this unclear "someone" in "the approporitate commission", which should alert anyone who didn't fall out of a tree yesterday of big corruption ahead. Those still in their diapers might be surprised of jamming capability; the rest of us should ne be.

The French have always been a big proponent but then again they have this massive penis envy with respect to the US.

Re:NOT obviously the US

[hummer357]

well, one of the geatest fears of the US is that a lot of oil-producing countries (in south america, africa, ex-soviet union) are/were considering pricing their oil in euros.

the US government wet their pants at that prospect.

Re:Policy of hypocrisy

[perly-king-69]

That might sound straight to you, but from over here it seems that you only worry about these problems _after_ someone's shat on your doorstep, so to speak.

Take terrorism. In England people were murdered for decades by IRA terrorists funded in no small part by Americans. Suddenly the Twin Towers are attacked and terrorism is the new world evil and the IRA funding via NorAid is stopped.

Welcome to the wonderful world of hypocrisy.